An Observant Wife

by Naomi Ragen

  Alone in her bed in the little apartment that had grown increasingly solitary with every passing year as one by one the children and grandchildren grew up and moved away, she thought about it. But it was ridiculous. Seventy-five. How does a person that age even stand beneath a chuppah? Everyone will laugh on me, she thought. But it wouldn’t have to be like the wedding of a young person, she suddenly thought. It could just be a rabbi, a few friends, a few of the children from both sides. No catered hall and groaning, heavy-laden buffet tables; no prancing musicians, no hysterical dancing circles of sweating guests. Just a simple gold ring, the recitation of “You are hereby consecrated unto me by the laws of Moses and Israel.” Just a heel smashing a napkin-wrapped glass. Just a simple supper afterward, she yawned, already seeing the table set with challah and gefilte fish. Maybe even p’tcha.

  It wouldn’t be like her first marriage, she thought. It’s so different when you’re young. The blood races, the stomach knots. You are excited, terrified, too, of the unknown, the forbidden territory of sexual love opening up like iron gates long locked by custom and tradition and law, suddenly, thrillingly, flinging open wide to let you pass through with God’s blessing. It would be nothing like that. Just two lonely human beings finding refuge and comfort with each other, leaving enough room between them for all their memories. He’ll bring his Malka Ruth, and I’ll bring my Yitzchak Chaim, she thought. All four of us would be in such a marriage. But so what? The table was big enough to hold them. And as they sat across from each other, she could put down a bowl of good soup in front of him and then in front of herself, and a potful would last a week, instead of a month in the freezer like now, with no one to eat her cooking but herself. Who can cook for one? It was depressing and impossible.

  Yes, she thought, changing sides again. It could be a good thing. But how to go about it?

  She couldn’t even imagine. Why, the very idea of approaching the subject with a matchmaker made goose bumps rise on her arms beneath the ankle-length, long-sleeved flannel nightgown and on the scalp beneath the tichel that covered her hair even in sleep.

  He would have to initiate, not, God forbid, her! It would have to be his idea.

  She began to think of ways in which Rav Alter might be helped along to come up with this idea all on his own.

  17

  YAAKOV STRUGGLES

  His heart was aflame with the kind of passion he had seldom known in his life. It is all going to hell, he thought as he tried to concentrate on the numbers and ledgers and computer spreadsheets that took up his desk.

  Why is this happening to me? he thought helplessly. That a daughter of mine could do such a thing … go alone into the city at night with a young man who she had been secretly meeting for who knows how long? A terrible, debilitating thought struck him. Had Leah known about it and kept it from him? And worse. Had she encouraged it?

  She was, after all was said and done, and as much as he believed in her and loved her and trusted her, a baalas teshuva. She had grown up in a different world, the debased world that he and his whole community invested everything in keeping at bay like a dangerous plague, sheltering the purity of their children from its toxic influence. And here, he had invited a person who had been sick with it into his home! Had been sick and sought help and recovered, he chastised himself, ashamed. He hung his head. But while Leah’s encounter with the disease of secular life might have given her antibodies and immunity, perhaps it had also seriously clouded her judgment. Just look at her reaction to Shaindele’s deceit! As if it were some little, minor problem all teenagers go through, like a bad grade on a test or a pair of stockings in the wrong shade! Imagine! And perhaps in her world—that is to say what was once her world, he chided himself—it was. But not in his. In his world, it was a complete catastrophe. How didn’t she understand that if it got out, his daughter would be ruined: expelled, prevented from graduating with her class, and forever barred from fulfilling her dream of becoming a teacher like her mameh? More, that she would be blackballed by the matchmakers!

  Even worse, perhaps, her brothers—those blameless, pious, studious young men far away with their aunt and uncle in Baltimore, innocent of any connection to their sister’s waywardness—might also find themselves cut off. If the word spread, no matchmaker in good conscience would be able to offer them the daughters of men willing and able to support them through years of kollel study, men who asked only that their future sons-in-law be serious scholars from impeccable families.

  He pinched his forehead, closing his eyes. How had it all come to this? And what was he going to do about it?

  It wasn’t Leah, he finally understood as he pondered this problem with the sincere honesty and self-reflection that had guided his whole life. It was him, this new life, he thought, looking around at the office with its six-foot-high cubicles and friendly, bareheaded coworkers, a place where strange women wore sweaters and skirts that made him blush.

  At first, he had been vigilant in keeping his distance, aware of the dangers inherent in their very proximity. But after a few months, when he got to know them, he realized that they were kind, considerate, and intelligent. He even had to admit that some of them had much better manners than the people in his own community, who were often impatient, pushy, and less than totally ethical. (He thought of Leah’s constant battles with her clients to get them to pay their bills.) His ideas about goyim—formed in the insular world of his upbringing—were shamefully stupid, he realized, born of ignorance and prejudice. After months in Manhattan among such people, the yeshiva world, which had once been his entire universe, seemed small and provincial in comparison to the sophisticated, massive life that went on daily in the city. The idea that only in the life of the yeshiva was there meaning and value, everything outside being worthless, seemed as unbelievable now as it had once been the gospel truth.

  As this realization stole over him, his steady resistance to the friendly overtures of his work colleagues to join them for lunch or out for drinks began to weaken. He wondered if he was being unfriendly for no reason, especially since it could affect his chances for promotion and raises. And so he’d gone out with them one evening when his boss insisted.

  It was a neighborhood restaurant with a long bar. They’d all ordered from the menu, but he’d had no choice but to choose something unmixed for fear of unkosher additives. He’d asked for vodka, which he knew was kosher. “Do you want a twist of lime with that?” the bartender inquired.

  “A twist? You mean a piece of fresh fruit, fresh lime?” he ascertained to make sure it posed no halachic problems with kashrut. Assured by the answer, he agreed.

  Outside of a sip of wine on Friday nights, four cups during the Passover seder, a tiny plastic cup of scotch after prayers on Shabbos morning, and various drinks on Purim, Yaakov Lehman was a stranger to alcohol. Now he faced a large glass of colorless but potent liquid that he had no choice but to consume to prevent offending those around him. He sipped it carefully. It was actually … quite … good, he thought, gulping it down.

  “Another?”

  “Why not?” he laughed, suddenly extremely calm and strangely delighted with himself and everyone else.

  After that, the conversations with his coworkers seemed unforced. He gave his opinion on the coming mayoral elections and listened good-naturedly to a detailed analysis of the chances of the New York Jets to make the playoffs, of which he understood nothing.

  “So how do you like our little company so far?” one of the secretaries asked him, taking a barstool next to his and staring at him with unfeigned curiosity and admiration as she took in his handsome face and the black velvet skullcap that covered his head.

  “Fine, fine. All is good,” he said, staring into his drink, mortified by her proximity.

  “I don’t know how you numbers guys do it all day. I’d go bonkers keeping track of all that.” She sighed, wiggling just a little to get comfortable, which brought her stool even closer to his.

  “Well,” he said, getti
ng up with measured speed. “I have a wife and children waiting at home for me.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “Okay, whatever.”

  After that, he begged off such occasions except when he absolutely couldn’t get out of it, like company celebrations, birthday parties, or going-away parties. This same woman—her name was Joelle—always seemed to find him.

  Maybe that was it, he thought. God was punishing him for talking to Joelle, for trying to be part of this company socially. The more he thought about it, the more upset and confused he became.

  I was once a kollel man, a yungerman. But who am I now?

  He had no time to think about it. His employer was paying him to work, not daydream or worry. It was a sin not to give a full, honest day’s labor, he scolded himself. With the self-discipline that comes with decades of training in fulfilling the will of God with meticulous, wholehearted obedience, Yaakov forced himself back to his work.

  As he stood swaying from the subway pole in the crowded F train on his way home that evening, his weary mind searched for answers, for encouragement, but it was simply blank, a used canvas muddied by failed attempts to create something skillful, something beautiful. He just wanted to go inside the small, rented apartment that was his home and be served a hot dinner by the woman he loved, surrounded by his children, with no questions asked, no tasks required of him as the moral head of his household. He did not want to fight with his beloved young wife, his Leah. He did not want to show an angry, bitter face to his beloved Shaindele, to fill the room with outpourings of indignation and disappointment. He just wanted to be left alone.

  But when he got off the subway and crept down the stairs, to his surprise, his feet took him in another direction altogether. It was only when he stood before the door of Rav Alter’s home that he understood where he had been led and why.

  The door opened slowly. It was the rav’s married daughter.

  “I’m so sorry. My name is Yaakov Lehman. I must speak with the rav.”

  “Does he know you?”

  “Ah, yes, for many years. I used to learn with him.”

  She sighed, but opened the door wider. “Sit down, I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to bother—”

  “Please, sit. He’d be upset with me if I let you go without asking him first.”

  He sat down nervously, his fingers drumming on his bent knees, feeling ashamed at this imposition and yet helpless to do anything about it.

  “He says to come into his study.”

  He followed her. As many years as he had known Rav Alter, he had never been to his home except once during shiva. There was an unwritten rule that it was off limits to all those beseeching his counsel and time, the last bastion of peace for the old man, his sanctuary. The study was empty.

  “He says to sit; he’ll come in a minute.”

  He sat down, every passing second like a slap in the face for his shamelessness in intruding on the old scholar’s private time. But before he could flee in shame, the door opened, and Rav Alter entered.

  “My dear Yaakov.” The rav smiled.

  Yaakov remembered their last meeting, and the shiva call after the rav’s wife passed away. But for some reason, even after all he’d gone through, the rav looked better now. All the tension had disappeared, and a transformative serenity bathed all his features. He actually seemed younger, steadier. It was almost a miracle, and one that gave Yaakov hope.

  “I’m so sorry to come here without calling. I just had to talk to you.”

  “You need to call me? Yaakov, Yaakov.” He shook his head in mock remonstrance. “Does a son need an appointment to see his father?”

  Yaakov blushed, the hard lump of agony in his throat, and in his heart, dissolving. “I wouldn’t have come, but I’m so lost!”

  The rav put his arm around Yaakov, leading him to a sofa. “Tell me.”

  “All those years I spent learning. Were they a mistake?”

  Rav Alter seemed surprised. “Do you think they were?”

  “I don’t know. Look where I am now. Like everybody else, in an office, using my brains and skills to earn a living, to make money. When I was in yeshiva, we were taught that: ‘God would provide for our every need.’”

  The old man shook his head. “Those were wonderful years, your years in yeshiva, in kollel. We convince our young men to give up everything, to learn. To become like the caretakers of the Holy Temple, the tribe of Levi, who were supported by the rest of the tribes to do their holy work. But each man also has his private destiny. Didn’t Yaakov our forefather work from sunup to sundown tending the flocks of Laban, a dishonest employer who changed his salary dozens of times? God could have given him gold and jewels, but instead He let him succeed at supporting himself through honest work. Moses, too, worked hard tending the sheep of his father-in-law. This was the task that fell to him, his destiny. Only when God intervened and changed his destiny did he do something else. Was Moses the shepherd less worthy than Moses the prophet? Both tasks were given to him by the same God, and he served his Creator in both.”

  Yaakov was still not convinced. “But is it right for me to abandon the role I always thought was mine?” he cried, his heart aching.

  “You know, the great Rav Avigdor Miller once said, ‘To be in kollel when it’s possible to be in kollel is a beautiful ideal. But when it’s not possible, it becomes a sin.’”

  Yaakov looked up, startled.

  “You are struggling, Yaakov, I can see that. As do we all. Every creature who lives must struggle. Did you ever watch an ant?”

  Yaakov thought back to the miserable day he had decided to go to Lakewood and become a beggar. Forlorn, he had realized that he couldn’t even eat the lunch that had been packed for him because there was no water to ritually wash his hands. Instead, he had crumbled the bread and cast it on the sidewalk, watching a colony of ants bear it away with single-minded strength and courage. That was the pivotal moment he shamefully realized that he had no other choice but to leave the kollel and go out to work.

  “But my life has so many challenges—my marriage, working, bringing up my children—I don’t know if I can do it all. I feel so lost outside the yeshiva. So incompetent.”

  Rabbi Alter placed a fatherly arm around Yaakov’s broad shoulders. “You must have faith that this is the situation into which a loving God has placed you. He would not have given you these challenges if He did not believe you could overcome them. Believe in God, Yaakov. Believe in yourself. As it is written: The righteous man shall live by his faith. It is just ego that prompts you to want the glory of being the next Rabbi Akiva. Instead, let your goal in life become being a better Yaakov Lehman—a better husband, a better father, a better accountant.”

  Something in those simple words struck him. Yes, that was the real answer. Yaakov nodded. “But I also want to keep learning. I have to.”

  “Of course! The Torah you learn will remind you that every small, ordinary thing you do is also for His sake.” He took Yaakov’s hand and pressed it. “Know Him in all your ways.”

  Yaakov looked into the old man’s eyes. No, it wasn’t a mistake, all those years I spent learning, he thought, remembering those glorious moments in time when he felt he had succeeded in looking at his life and the world through the eyes of God. I would not be Yaakov Lehman without that investment of time and effort but someone else, someone lesser, in my own eyes.

  “Thank you so much, Rav. I can’t tell you how you’ve helped me. May HaShem bless you and your family. Please forgive me for stealing from your private time. It won’t happen again.”

  “Yaakov, my dear son, if you need me, come to me. It is always a joy to see you.”

  They embraced, then parted.

  If only he could speak to the rav every day, he thought as he hurried home through the dark streets; get such encouragement every day as in his yeshiva days, when all he needed to do was go up one flight and stand outside his door!

  But what he had
done tonight couldn’t happen very often, however generous the rav had been to make him feel otherwise. He suddenly felt as bereft as a child whose mother had dropped him off at a strange new boarding school. He would have to learn to manage on his own.

  As he walked home through the dark streets toward the family and home he loved, he prayed that his years of learning had given him the wisdom to bring with him through his front door the kind of answers that would bless them all. The alternative was unthinkable.

  18

  A FAMILY IN TURMOIL

  “Yaakov,” Leah said, opening the door with an uncertain half smile on her face. She was happy to see him; she couldn’t help that, but also filled with a certain dread of what was going to happen now. So much had been left unsaid after the bombshell of Shaindele’s revelations. Aside from the harsh restrictions now in place, they had failed to be honest with each other about how they were going to get through this together, as man and wife, parents, lovers.

  “My Leah-le,” he said with something of the old affection of their courting days.

  A huge wave of relief coursed through her. Her eyes brightened as she brought her hand to his shoulder, lightly touching his coat. “You are so late. I was worried.”

  Of course! How had he forgotten to call her? “I’m so sorry, Leah. I went to talk to Rav Alter,” he said, coming into the living room and clasping her hand until he reluctantly released himself to take off his coat and hang it in the closet.

  There was so much she wanted to say to him, but soon the children were streaming out of their bedrooms.

  “Tateh! Tateh!” they shouted, running to him. His face lit up with joy as he gathered his little boy and girl fondly in his arms. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Shaindele, too, had come to greet him, hanging back in the hallway, her shoulder pressed against the wall, her arms crossed protectively.